The Curious Case of Primož Roglič

At the Tour of Romandie this week, Primož Roglič has drawn some (to say the least) cycling pundits for his seeming lack of serious demeanor in a stage race where his teammate placed second overall while Roglič seemingly lost needless time on stage 3, then went in the break on stage 4 instead of working for Lipowitz. 

The attentive among us will have noticed that this behavior is a hold-over from the last week of last year's Tour de France, where Roglič went on several ill-fated escapades up the road, losing his top-5 placing in the process, all while seeming nonchalant. Coupled with a sparse racing calendar so far this year and a long break in racing planned until the Vuelta a España in August, some are wondering if the Slovenian is already riding off into the sunset at age 36.

No crocodile tears but maybe an alligator smile?

While this may, in fact, be the case, I am not so sure. We can argue that Roglič should have worked for Lipowitz in Romandie, given Lipowitz was branded with 21 on his back, indicating he was the GC leader for Red Bull-Bora, while Roglič was given 25. Now, maybe that was against Roglič's wishes, and some of his actions in Switzerland were in protest to this seeming demotion. But, at some point, the team is him the big bucks to do their bidding, so maybe he should listen.

While not condoning Roglič's professional actions the past year, I do think another factor may be at play. When the Slovenian signed with Red Bull-Bora in late 2023, it seems highly likely they stated that they would build a team around and support him in the grand tours while he was still a viable GC option. Roglič got a year of that in 2024, where he crashed out of the Tour and then won the Vuelta handily. He was given the lead role in the Tour last year only to see Lipowitz ride strongly through the second week. 

And here is where I think the issue arises. While Lipowitz was placed ahead of Roglič after stage 6, it's not as though Lipowitz was miles ahead at any point. Rather, until Roglič's breakaway escapades in the final week, it was never much more than a minute gap between the two. Although I can't find public statements to confirm, I suspect that, maybe during the second rest day of the Tour, management told the team that Lipowitz would be the guy for GC going forward, with both the young rider's jersey and a podium place to protect. In this case, I think Roglič would have a bit of reason to be upset, as he was riding well (he put time into Lipowitz in the TT although he was getting dropped a bit on some of the climbs) and was the guy going into the Tour. Of course, it's hard not to go with the hot hand, but there was a clear hierarchy going into the race, and it's not like Roglič was completely gone from GC at any point (he was fifth overall before going into breaks) -- they could have gone for Roglič on the podium and Lipowitz on in the young rider's classification. Instead, I think they switched to Lipowitz, and that did not (and continues to not) sit well with Roglič.

And now, after ceding the GC role at the Tour to Vingegaard following the Danes' stellar 2021 and 2022 Tours following Roglič's abandons in both, he is no longer the guy after a year at the team that shelled out quite a bit of money to acquire him. And, on top of that, they signed Remco Evenepoel in the off-season, who is seemingly the classics guy. So, where does that leave Roglič? I'm not sure he knows, and that might be the reason for his seemingly erratic cycling behavior recently -- he feels undervalued by the team that seemed overjoyed to have him two years ago.

But, of course, this is all pure speculation on my part.